Pitts, the pastor of
New Hope Baptist Church
in Danbury and the president of the Greater Danbury Chapter of the
NAACP
, will join a busload of congregants and friends Jan. 20 as America welcomes its first president of color.

"I want to bottle that air and bring it home. I'm going to put it on my shelf and write on it, 'Do not open,' and save it forever," Pitts said Friday afternoon, only half-kidding.

This is the effervescent anticipation that's bubbling inside the sanctuary at 10 Dr.
Aaron B. Samuels
Blvd. and beyond.

Far beyond.

Pitts and countless others -- some estimates claim Washington's population will swell by 4 million on inauguration day -- are twitching with excitable images of
Barack Obama
as one part president, one part miracle worker, one part rock star.

Come inauguration day, Danbury's
Clara Perkins
and her daughter, Crystal, will climb on the New Hope coach bus at 2 a.m. for the ride of their lives, the most important day trip in a generation.

The Perkins women will be joined by nearly four dozen other people, including former Danbury Common Council member
Lynn Taborsak
and
Barbara Levitt
, who co-owns Upscale Downtown Consignments on Main Street.

"When
Jackie Robinson
broke the color barrier (in baseball), it was because he was an excellent ballplayer," he observed. "He couldn't have done that as an average ballplayer."

It's no different with Obama.

Obama couldn't have scaled these unprecedented political mountains if he were an ordinary man, if he were content with mediocrity and the status quo.

Instead, Obama chased history and crossed the finish line first.

None of this is lost on Pitts, who spent most of last week in Tennessee to mourn an uncle.

"He was 72 years old and he grew up in the Jim Crow South," Pitts said, referring to the ugly era of legal segregation. "I was talking with some of my other uncles and they told me they never imagined an African-American would become president when they were kids.

"Now, my young children will grow up never knowing what it was like not to have a black president," he said. "Barack Obama represents the new standard of excellence."

This is why 48 people will fill a bus at New Hope Baptist Church in the middle of the night Jan. 20. It's also why they will get to soak up the brightest rays of hope in Washington.

So what if nobody on this bus has tickets to the inauguration? So what if they'll only see Obama on a giant TV screen?

"We won't be that close to everything, but we'll be among the thousands of people there," Clara Perkins said. "I know the atmosphere is going to be great, and we're going to be there."

Perkins will turn 61 next weekend, just days before Obama's inauguration. It's hard, if not downright impossible, to think of a better birthday present.

"I've lived in Danbury for the last 42 years, but I grew up in Newport News, Va.," Perkins said. "I'm not shocked Barack Obama was elected president. It had to happen eventually. I just think he was the perfect candidate to make it happen."

After counting all the votes, it seems a nation agrees.

"When you think about the historical significance of this, you have to go down there," Pitts said. "We just want to be in that space on inauguration day. We want to feel the moment and feel the history.

"I'm just looking forward to going down to Washington with 4 million of my closest friends and changing America," he said. "I wish that everyone could go down."

Unfortunately, Pitts can't give everyone a free pass to history.

But maybe he can fill up an extra bottle of that Washington air and bring it home.